Football Flash

UEFA Nations League is set to kick off this weekend

Florin Orban, 06.09.2018, 12:53

The Nations League kicks off with 55 football sides divided in four echelons, which are also vying for tickets to Euro 2020. The competition is aimed at replacing the friendly matches and will unfold under a promotion-demotion system. Group winners in the B, C, D series are to be promoted to the superior echelons while the sides ending on the last position in the A, B, C series are to be demoted to the lower echelons. Romania is in the third-tier series in the fourth group together with Serbia, Muntenegro and Lithuania. Defending champions, France, is part of group 1 in the A series together with Germany and the Netherlands.

In the first leg of Romania’s group, Lithuania will be playing Serbia while our side is going to take on Montenegro. The 25 players summoned by Romanian coach Cosmin Contra participated in the training session hosted by the national Football Center in Mogosoaia, close to Bucharest. The lineup also includes a 19 year old footballer currently playing for Viitorul Constanta. The game against Montenegro is due in Ploiesti on September 7th behind closed doors and will be umpired by a team of referees from Slovakia led by Ivan Kruzliak.

The national women’s football side of Romania was trounced by Portugal 5-1 in their last away game counting towards the preliminaries for World Cup 2019. Mara Batea put Romania in the lead in the third minute, but the hosts came back with a vengeance and scored no less than four times. Melinda Nagy sealed the points with an own goal in the 42nd minute. In another game Belgium has outperformed Italy 2-1. In the final standings, Italy comes first with 21 points followed by Belgium with 19 points, Portugal with 11, Romania with 5 and Moldova 1 point.

(Translated by D. Bilt)